Rain doesn’t damage roads or crops

By Xiomara Levsen | Jun 23, 2014

Washington County has received a lot of rain in the past few days. According to the National Weather Service (NWS) Web site, rain totals in the last 24 hours varied from 1.84 inches of rain in Brighton to 1.2 inches of rain reported in Wellman. In the City of Washington 1.54 inches of rain was reported to the NWS. Washington County engineer Jacob Thorius said thankfully damage to county roads has been minimal. After the rain settled down this morning Thorius said his crews from the Washington County engineer department surveyed the areas they were in charge of, looking for ruts in the road or road washouts. “We have a spot near Crawfordsville we’re working on this morning,” he said. “Other than that we have nothing major to report.” However, Thorius said as the day goes on his office would probably receive more reports from farmers. Another area Thorius is keeping an eye is near the English River in Kalona. “We have some backwater over the roads near the Bunker Mill Bridge but no road closures yet,” he said. The NWS issued a flood warning for the English River until 6 a.m. on Tuesday. The river is expected to crest at 14.6 feet Monday evening and by Tuesday morning is expected to be back below flood stage. Iowa State University agronomist Virgil Schmitt said crops also haven’t been affected as much as he expected them to be in the area from the recent wind and rains. “There’s some ponding in the fields—that’s not good,” Schmitt said. “I’ve also heard of ‘green snap’ in the corn, which means the corn was really brittle when the wind came through and they snapped off, but it’s nothing widespread, which is the good news.” June is usually the wettest month of the year, Schmitt said. Farmers rely on this month’s moisture to get them through the usually dry months of July and August and will make farmers less dependent on the rains in July and August. Schmitt remains optimistic about crop conditions in Washington County. “In the big picture, crops are all doing pretty good,” Schmitt said. “I cover quite a few counties, including Washington County, and haven’t seen as much damage to the crops that could have been with the weather that has come through.”